January 2015 Comic Book Sales to Comics Shops

Estimated Comics Shipped to North American Comics Shops
Based on Reports from Diamond Comic Distributors

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

The Direct Market began the year strongly, up 12%, thanks to the return of the Star Wars license to Marvel. Marvel's relaunch issue Star Wars #1 had sales that, when UK and February reorders are included, put it over 1 million copies sold; Diamond shipped closed to 986,000 copies to North American retailers in the month of January. The lion's share of those orders were placed by comics ships, although one of the dozens of variant covers was for the repackager Loot Crate, whose orders would have been somewhere over 300,000 copies based on what we've seen in the past. Regardless, it's safe to assume the issue would have taken the century bestseller record to that point based on comic-shop sales alone.

There are a number of other things we can say about it that we don't normally keep categories for. The issue sold nearly nine times as many copies as its closest competitor in January, Batman#38; this doesn't appear to have happened since 1991, when X-Men Vol. 2 #1 — at 8 million copies plus, the best-selling comic in North American history — outpaced the second-place title, X-Force #3, by about the same factor. Further, the issue outsold the next 12 comic books on the charts combined — and, perhaps more impressively, sold as many copies as every comic book between 163rd and 300th place, combined. About every seventh comic book retailers ordered in the Top 300 was a Star Wars #1 — and the comic book alone represented 11% of Diamond's dollar sales for the month, if we look just at standard retail price. That's larger than everyone's market share but Marvel and DC.

Overall comics unit sales were up 10.27% year-over-year, but slightly off from December. January 2015 was a four-ship-week month, but while January 2014 had five Wednesdays, its first Wednesday was counted as part of December 2013's shipping. So it's really a four-week-to-four-week comparison.

This list includes all items on Diamond's Top 300 charts, plus any post-#300 items from its Top 50 Indy and Small Publisher charts. If you don't see a book, Diamond released no data for it.
Items marked with asterisks [*] had their reported orders reduced by 10% due to returnability.
Items marked with daggers [†] included 350,000 to 450,000 copies from the online reseller Loot Crate.
The links lead to current listings for each issue on eBay. You can also find the books at your comics shop.

All comics sold by Diamond (in dollars)(
+10% vs. same month previous year)

GRAPHIC NOVEL DOLLAR SALES

The Top 300 Graphic Novels sold had a total retail price of$6.63 million

(
+14% vs. same month previous year)(
-26% vs. same month 5 years earlier)(
+26% vs. same month 10 years earlier, comparing just the Top 100 vs. Top 100)(
+48% vs. same month 15 years earlier, comparing just the Top 25 vs. the Top 25)

The Top 300 Comics and Top 300 Graphic Novels sold had a combined total retail price of$33.5 million

(
+15% vs. same month previous year)(
+25% vs. same month 5 years earlier)(
+68% vs. same month 10 years earlier, comparing just the Top 100 GNs vs. Top 100 GNs)(
+99% vs. same month 15 years earlier, comparing just the Top 25 GNs vs. the Top 25 GNs)

All comics and graphic novels sold by Diamond (in dollars)(
+12% vs. same month previous year)

around $43.75 million(
+12% vs. same month previous year)(
+37% vs. same month 5 years earlier)(
+88% vs. same month 10 years earlier, comparing just the Top 100 GNs vs. Top 100 GNs)

Category to date for yeararound $. million(
0% vs. previous year)

Note: This category diverges slightly from Diamond's reported measures for all comics and graphic novels. Slight differences are introduced by the presence of magazines and other factors.

Average cost of comics in the Top 300:$3.77

Average cost of comics in the Top 300, weighted by orders:$3.95

Average cost of comics in the Top 25:$3.83

Median cost of comics in the Top 300:$3.99

Most common cost of comics in the Top 300:$3.99

MARKET SHARES

Share of Overall Units

Marvel

45.64%

DC

27.06%

Image

8.91%

IDW

4.52%

Dark Horse

3.03%

Boom

2.28%

Dynamite

2.22%

Valiant

0.93%

Avatar

0.81%

Titan

0.71%

Archie

0.55%

Zenescope

0.52%

Viz

0.39%

Eaglemoss

0.32%

Random House

0.29%

Oni

0.24%

Hachette

0.12%

Fantagraphics

0.10%

St. Martins

0.08%

Abstract

0.07%

Other

1.21%

Share of Overall Dollars

Marvel

41.05%

DC

24.18%

Image

9.21%

IDW

5.78%

Dark Horse

4.01%

Dynamite

2.41%

Boom

2.26%

Eaglemoss

1.46%

Avatar

1.08%

Viz

0.95%

Valiant

0.85%

Random House

0.81%

Titan

0.73%

Archie

0.67%

Zenescope

0.54%

Fantagraphics

0.50%

Hachette

0.38%

Oni

0.37%

St. Martins

0.26%

Abstract

0.16%

Other

2.35%

Items in Top 300

DC

80

Marvel

79

Image

38

IDW

27

Dynamite

20

Dark Horse

16

Boom

11

Avatar

8

Valiant

8

Archie

3

Titan

3

Zenescope

3

Bongo

2

Broadsword

1

United Plankton

1

Share of Units in Top 300

Marvel

51.06%

DC

28.51%

Image

8.04%

IDW

3.74%

Dark Horse

2.23%

Dynamite

1.95%

Boom

1.33%

Valiant

0.94%

Avatar

0.71%

Titan

0.62%

Archie

0.34%

Zenescope

0.21%

Bongo

0.17%

United Plankton

0.09%

Broadsword

0.08%

Share of Dollars in Top 300

Marvel

55.82%

DC

24.58%

Image

7.13%

IDW

3.83%

Dynamite

2.14%

Dark Horse

2.05%

Boom

1.34%

Valiant

0.95%

Avatar

0.72%

Titan

0.63%

Archie

0.34%

Zenescope

0.21%

Bongo

0.13%

United Plankton

0.07%

Broadsword

0.06%

Dollar Share of Top 300 Comics & Top 300 TPBs

Marvel

50.94%

DC

25.04%

Image

9.69%

IDW

4.28%

Dark Horse

2.67%

Dynamite

1.99%

Boom

1.17%

Valiant

0.94%

Avatar

0.65%

Titan

0.51%

Archie

0.46%

Viz

0.35%

Fantagraphics

0.21%

Zenescope

0.19%

Hachette

0.15%

Bongo

0.15%

Random House

0.15%

Oni

0.13%

Abstract

0.11%

St. Martins

0.05%

United Plankton

0.05%

Broadsword

0.05%

Panini

0.04%

Drawn & Quarterly

0.02%

Digital Manga

0.02%

New comics released

DC

86

Marvel

79

Other

77

Image

54

IDW

50

Boom

34

Dynamite

31

Dark Horse

28

Avatar

10

TOTAL

449

New graphic novels released

Marvel

33

Viz

31

IDW

26

DC

23

Dark Horse

19

Image

14

Boom

6

Dynamite

6

Avatar

2

Other

108

TOTAL

268

THE FINE PRINT

The monthly sales estimates at right are for items shipped by Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest comic-book distributor in North America.

Diamond does not publish sales figures; instead it publishes "indexed" sales tables, in which it keys orders for all comics it lists sales for to a single comic book (usually Batman), with one “order index point” being equal to 1% of that title’s orders.

Along with other methods, we use the actual Diamond final orders from titles to approximate what an order index point equals each month.The result is applied to the Diamond charts to produce the estimates seen at right.

The figures represent only those comics and graphic novels that Diamond shipped to North American retailers in the calendar month. While Diamond's sales represent the majority of periodicals in circulation, they are a smaller portion of the overall graphic novel market.

An item may appear in more than one month's charts due to reorders; for a better idea of a comic book's overall sales, look for its end-of-year sales in the Year Overview section, where available.

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